Recently, reduction of setup costs of print apparatuses is achieved by utilizing a print apparatus connected to a network among a plurality of users and office work is made more efficient by reducing printing time with distributed printing and simultaneous printing with the use of a plurality of print apparatuses. On the other hand, color printers become widely utilized partially because of performance improvement thereof, while the numbers of sheets used for printing and copying are increased and printing costs are also increased. Therefore, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-215373, a management server is connected to a network to manage both printing and copying, and the permitted number of prints for a user is limited by centrally manage printing limiting information, etc., to give instructions on whether printing can be performed, etc.
In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-349704, an upper limit value of permitted number of prints is set for each user to predict necessity of alteration in setting of the upper limit value of permitted number of prints from the permitted number of prints set for a user and the situation of the number of prints, and a setting alteration inquiring portion is included for inquiring of a manager whether alteration in setting of the upper limit value of permitted number of prints is granted or not. When alteration in setting of the upper limit value of permitted number of prints is granted by the manager, a print process is enabled based on the altered print limitation.
When an upper limit value of permitted number of prints is set for each user or a group consisting of a plurality of users, a requested number of prints may exceed the upper limit value of permitted number of prints due to generation of sudden events, responses to customers, etc. Although a user normally requests a manager who manages setting of the permitted number of prints to alter the upper limit value of permitted number of prints in such a case, as shown in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-349704, a response may not quickly be made to a sudden alteration request in many cases due to absence of the manager, etc. In such a case, accommodation must be made within a range of the printing limitation so as to avoid interruption or stagnation of the print process.